Saturday, December 7, 2013

December Update!

I've got dinner in the oven (fennel and onion pie though I'm sure it has a fancier name than that in the cookery book) so am trying to update on here while that's cooking.

I am meant to be going to the Royal tomorrow for their craft fair (Santy will be there too!) - it's usually one of my favourite fairs of the year but I've cancelled my table as I have the mankiest cold and don't fancy either infecting half the island with it, or sitting around and shivering all afternoon. It's really disappointing as that was going to be my last one of the year but I'm also meant to be going over to visit Peter's Mum in England later this week and I don't want to bring my cold over there :(

I did two craft fairs in November, one in Portmagee and the usual Christmas one in the Tech, just down the road. The Tech one is my favourite of the whole year; there's always a lovely atmosphere and it really makes me feel Christmassy.

The two fairs were kind of like night and day. I only sold three hats and two pairs of wrist warmers at the Portmagee one - I was happy enough with it but thought that I'd have done better as hopefully people would be getting ready to buy Christmas pressies. Sadly I also had quite a few ''oh I could make this'' comments from people who didn't even barely glance at my items; I don't know why on earth people do this --- it's so soul destroying and mean :(

Anyway, I dusted myself off and braved the one at the Tech, not really hoping for the best but wow was I wrong! I sold SIX pairs of the crocodile stitch wristers! Six pairs!! Also another 5 pairs of 'regular' wrist warmers, 4 of my little wrist cuffs, 2 headbands, 2 hats, 4 cards (yay!) and one of the little sea shell bottles! Phew!!

It was by far and away the best craft market I've ever had; and it was weird because the lady sitting next to me only sold two hats -- and her stuff was lovely. I guess you just never know what people will want on the day.

So my Etsy shop is looking a bit decimated, I 'only' have 116 listings on there; I think the Christmas 'rush' has passed now but I'm still desperately hoping that I will reach my target of 500 sales soon. It'd be lovely if I made it by the end of the year but I won't exactly be losing sleep over it if I don't.

I'm up to 482 sales on there, which I can't grumble about!

To celebrate my successful craft fair in Waterville last weekend I'm afraid I gave in to my impulse/addiction and splurged on wool! I've ordered from BlackSheepWools again and PurpleLinda Crafts too - and I think I'm gearing up for a Springwools order while I'm at it though that hasn't happened yet! I really don't have any will-power when it comes to wool but I guess there could be worse things I could be spending my money on ;)

I just found out this week that one of my favourite yarns is discontinued :( It's the lovely ''Freedom Spirit dk' by Twilleys of Stamford, and is a really good quality soft pure wool which I've been using for my crochet for AGES. I'm so upset that it's gone - I must try and scout about on the internet and see if I can buy up a few balls before it's totally all sold and gone. The above headbands are all made with it; I love the colours and it's great soft wool too :(

I only have one of the hats left that I'd made with my gorgeous Italian wools - I might do a separate blog post about how I've started using up that yarn as it would be nice to have them all together... Every time one of those hats has sold I kick myself for not having bought more of the wool..but we were at our full luggage capacity with RyanAir :(

Oh and I must do a blog post about my adventures in spinning! Watch out world the spinning selkie approacheth! I've put that on hold til after Christmas though as I have a few orders on my 'books' and am making a surprise Christmas pressie for someone - so that will be enough to keep me busy for a while yet I think.